And that was all. Helen stared at it and stared again, and then let it fall and gazed about her, echoing, in a hollow voice, “And I shall not ever return!”
“That is all I can tell you about it,” went on the woman. “I have not seen him since Elizabeth was here yesterday morning; he came back late last night and packed his bag and went away.”
Helen sank down upon a chair and buried her face in her hands, quite overwhelmed by the suddenness of that discovery. She remained thus for a long time, without either sound or motion, and the woman stood watching her, knowing full well what was the matter. When Helen looked up again there was agony written upon her countenance. “Oh, are you sure you have no idea where I can find him?” she moaned.
“No, Miss Davis,” said the woman. “I was asounded when I got this note.”
“But someone must know, oh, surely they must! Someone must have seen him,—or he must have told someone!”
“I think it likely that he took care not to,” was the reply.
The thought was a death-knell to Helen's last hope, and she sank down, quite overcome; she knew that Arthur could have had but one motive in acting as he had,—that he meant to cut himself off entirely from all his old life and surroundings. He had no friends in Hilltown, and having lived all alone, it would be possible for him to do it. Helen remembered Mr. Howard's saying of the night before, how the sight of her baseness might wreck a man's life forever, and the more she thought of that, the more it made her tremble. It seemed almost more than she could bear to see this fearful consequence of her sin, and to know that it had become a fact of the outer world, and gone beyond her power. It seemed quite too cruel that she should have such a thing on her conscience, and have it there forever; most maddening of all was the thought that it had depended upon a few hours of time.
“Oh, how can I have waited!” she moaned. “I should have come last night, I should have stopped the carriage when I saw him! Oh, it is not possible!”
Perhaps there are no more tragic words in human speech than “Too late.” Helen felt just then as if the right even to repentance were taken from her life. It was her first introduction to that fearful thing of which Mr. Howard had told her upon their first meeting; in the deep loneliness of her own heart Helen was face to face just then with FATE. She shrank back in terror, and she struggled frantically, but she felt its grip of steel about her wrist; and while she sat there with her face hidden, she was learning to gaze into its eyes, and front their fiery terror. When she looked up again her face was very white and pitiful to see, and she rose from her chair and went toward the door so unsteadily that the woman put her arm about her.
“You will tell me,” she gasped faintly—“you will tell me if you hear anything?”